Savour Saviour
by OhSlashy
Summary: Something this sweet has to be savoured. Something this sweet has to be saved. SLASH. E/J
1. Chapter 1

_**I**_

There's something _chokingly _innocent about him, though at the same time Edward can barely put a finger on it. He's peeling his tee shirt from his lean, brown body; smiling with swollen lips; batting ridiculously pretty eyes... _straddling, _whispering: "so how d'you want me, mister?" So maybe his innocence is on the coy side, maybe it's just naivety (not _that _sort), but it's almost enough to bring Edward to his knees. Almost.

"Clean for a start," he pushes and the boy climbs off his lap obligingly, all dishevelled blonde hair and sweaty, dirt smeared skin. "The shower's through there."

He has to take them off the streets or else someone might miss them when they're gone.

"I assume you've already had one then?" the boy asks. "I don't want to fuck no dirty bitch either, you know?" He juts one hip and crosses his arms over the slim swell of his chest.

Edward casts him a surly look, sliding his tie from around his neck and dropping it to the floor. "Don't piss me off."

So the boy puts on a brave face, scoffs half-heartedly and slouches off to the bathroom.

Five minutes later he's glistening, pushing damp hair from his forehead and his rosy cheeks. Edward has to mind himself as he pins the boy to the wall, wraps a hand around his throat and presses his lips against the timid little pulse.

"Watch it, mister," the boy breaths warningly, though he writhes like a slut, arching and clutching at Edward's shirt. "Marks cost you extra."

Edward's lips part where they're pressed to the boy's neck and he lets out a low chuckle. He shoves a hand into the pocket of his black slacks, draws out a fistful of twenties... and forces them into the boy's hand. He can take them back when the boy is dead.


	2. Chapter 2

**II**

Like an angel from heaven the boy tumbles from Edward's arms, landing in the centre of the bed, painted in blood and seed and venom. His head falls to the side, his throat arches and, for a moment, Edward sees the whites of his eyes. Then the boy shudders, and stills.

Edward drags the back of his hand across his mouth. Whores aren't supposed to scream like the boy did. But they're supposed to beg too and the boy didn't do that. He puts a long, pale finger to the boy's chin and turns his head. Fresh blood pumps from the wound on his throat, scarlet ribbons sliding onto the sheets.

In the four years he's been on his own he has dined on the blood of murderers, rapists, wife-beaters, thieves, pimps, addicts and prostitutes. Their blood is bitter, their scent _sour. _Not sweet; so, so sweet. Sweet like the boy who lies before him, thighs spread, throat bloodied.

And it breaks Edward's heart; his cold, dead heart feels like it could burst out of his chest or else shrivel up into nothing. And if he could cry, he would.

His hand slips under the boy's cheek, thumb gliding over the cool, smooth skin. Suddenly, the boy turns his face into Edward's palm, his lips part softly and Edward snaps his hand back as though burnt. He thought the boy dead. Venom is beading at the point of his fangs but he doesn't move. Is this his chance? He thought he killed him. He could save him too.

/ \

"_Edward." _James is crouched on the hood of a car, right outside of the hotel. Strands of lank hair fall in his eyes as he cocks his head. "Been _hunting?"_

He slinks off of the car and the windows flash red. Edward is shoved into the wall at the end of the alley, brick dust crumbling under his back. James' tongue darts out, flicking under his upper lip. He presses closer and lets out a moan.

"You taste like blood," he breaths.

"As do you," Edward whispers.

They kiss again, deeply. James releases the wrists he had pinned to Edward's sides so they can pull at each other.

After a moment Edward breaks away. "A woman," he pants. "Older… She had children?"

James chuckles quietly. "Your tongue tastes all." He presses his own into the caverns of Edward's mouth. He takes Edward by the throat, sliding his tongue along his teeth. He's not as tall as Edward and balances on his toes to lick away the last taste of blood. "And you," he moans pulling back, sagging, "a boy. A young, naïve child… A virgin?"

James always gets it wrong. Edward's head falls back against the wall. When he sucks in a huge breath through his nose he can smell the boy's blood on his skin. "A whore…" he breathes.

James is hard against his thigh. He kisses Edward again, nails scraping along his neck. "He tastes _good. _Did you drain him dry?"

Edward's hand tangles in James' hair. "As I fucked him bloody," he hisses.

James grunts. "God, I bet he was tight. Was he tight?"

"Yes," Edward croons.

James bares his teeth. His hand pushes into Edward's pants. "How'd he take it, on his knees?"

"Thighs _spread_..."

James moans hard. "It's a pity... he's dead," he pants.

Edward pushes off the wall and shoves James to his knees. "Yes," he says as he pries James' jaw open, "yes it is."

/ \

"Hah! Hah!"

He's choking.

"_Hack._"

Gurgling and spluttering, spitting and coughing.

"HUH!"

He rolls onto his side and retches. A string of red saliva hangs from his lip. He swipes a hand across his mouth but he can't support his weight with just the one arm. He collapses again, hands scrabbling at his throat, legs twitching. He passes out a moment later. Black rivers of dried blood stain his skin and the sheets are red and sticky. But Jasper's chest continues to swell and breath continues to wheeze from his parted lips.


	3. Chapter 3

**III**

It's gloomy when finally Jasper wakes and he doesn't know where he is. The lights are off, the curtains are drawn and he's curled up under the duvet in the middle of a bed. He pushes the quilt out of the way, shuffling back against the headboard. His head rings. Absently, one hand drifts to his neck and he feels a jagged scab under his fingertips.

He crawls to the end of the bed and climbs out. A light flickers in the bathroom. Jasper flicks it off and on again and fluorescent light fills the room. He winces, rubbing his eyes. A thin, blonde-haired boy peers back at him from the mirror. He touches his neck again, tracing the thin, crescent-shaped scar. He remembers scarlet channels of blood like fingers grasping, crawling down his throat, down his thighs.

_What happened last night? _

He remembers eyes as red as rubies and copper hair, skin as cold as ice and long elegant fingers wrapped round his wrists. He remembers watching the digital clock on the bedside table turn from 10:04 to 02:37, as tears leaked from the corner of his eye and that brute of a man took him with short, staccato thrusts.

He remembers the man leaving. He remembers closing his eyes and waiting to die.

And he remembers the man coming back. He remembers a hot cloth pressing to his cheek and his throat and between his legs.

Jasper flicks off the light.

/ \

The streets are awash with florescent light from the street lamps. The whores in their tattered tights and skimpy skirts are already creeping out of the shadows. _He's missed a whole day,_ Jasper realises. _That means another day of school. _He'll have to blow the headmaster again, just to keep from being expelled. It's the way he got in anyhow. See, most schools don't accept homeless kids from out of town. But Jasper just, kind of, turns up when he can and blows the headmaster when he has to.

He's got $250 tucked into his underwear and another 250 in his shoe. That's more than he makes in a week. Maybe, if he could save a little more, he could afford to rent an apartment. When he came to San Fran, seven weeks ago, he stayed in hostels. Then he got mugged. Then he ended up on the street. Three weeks ago he sold himself for the first time. But he's got a hidey hole where he keeps his cash and he does all his homework and he'll get himself out. He will.

Jasper walks a block till the whore's trade in their sequin dresses for denim shorts and tight white tees. First he's going to hide his cash and then he's going to get a proper meal and a good night's sleep. Then, tomorrow, he'll buy a pair of shoes and a couple more blankets for the mattress in the alley he calls his home.

He walks all the way to TGI Fridays. By the time he gets there he feels so sick he throws up in the loo before ordering his food. Once he's eaten he throws up again. Someone kicks him out. He smells of tramp and now he smells of puke. He buys a packet of crisps from a store instead.

And once he's booked into a hotel that has clean sheets and doesn't remind him of the one he woke up in he closes his eyes. He thinks about the man that looked like a boy, wide-eyed as he'd sunk inside him trying to hide under a mask of cruelty. Next to his alabaster skin, his red eyes and fiery hair resembled the exotic feathers of a bird. But Jasper's known cruel people – they're the reason he's on the streets in the first place. And the man-boy could have killed him but he didn't. He'd kissed hesitantly and he'd fucked desperately and he'd _bit _him and _hurt _him.

And there's that final thing. Blood dripping from his perfect, pink lips, flecking Jasper's cheeks like freckles. And Jasper thinks, _vampire._


	4. Chapter 4

**IV**

Edwards hunts him.

He picks his scent up near a hotel, follows it to a kebab shop, loses it near a subway and finds it once again outside a school. He traces him through the streets. He snatches bits of him outside cheap food stalls or on the corner of a road, right by the curb. Then he smells him on the jacket of a man and he finds the boy down the next alley.

He's sitting on a faded, pale pink mattress, splotched yellow and grey. The light from a window two floors above catches in his eyelashes and they glint like gold dust. Slim, little fingers clutch a note book; neat white teeth dig into his bottom lip. His brow is puckered in confusion.

And then, as Edward watches, the boy freezes and slowly he raises his eyes. The blood drains from his face and his book slips from his fingers. He's on his feet in a moment but he seems to know better than to run.

Edward approaches him slowly, like you would a cornered animal. He doesn't want to frighten the boy. His shoes click against the bricks under his feet.

As he draws closer the boy's fingers reach back, touching the wall behind him as though to make sure it's still there. But he doesn't take his eyes of Edward. Even when he comes as close as he can without touching. Even when Edward raises one finger to hover before the boy's quivering lips.

It's almost more than Edward can bear when the boy's eyes cross. He tilts his head and smooths his thumb across one cheek.

When he does so the boy's eyelids flutter.

"I can't stop thinking about you," they both say at once.

The boy catches his breath. There's tremulous fear and desire in his heavy-eyed gaze. He touches Edward's wrist and rises on to his tiptoes. Their noses bump. And Edward catches his lips with his own.

"Ouch," the boy mutters instantly and pulls away abruptly, breaking their kiss. Blood stains his lips and his fingers tremble as they press to his mouth.

Edward crashes their mouths together fiercely, sucking the boy's lower lip into his mouth.

The boy gasps hard and Edward moans.

Little, bloody fingerprints pattern Edward's shirt where the boy's nails dig into him.

Later, Edward takes him quick and rough, burying his teeth in his jugular once again. By the time he's finished the boy is unconscious, his head lolling from side to side. Edward catches him, holding him close and licking his neck to stem the flow of blood. He carefully lays him down and arranges the blankets around him. A trickle of blood runs under the neck of his tee-shirt. Once again he tucks five hundred quid into the boy's pocket.

He's about to leave him when he notices the book on the floor. He bends and picks it up. It falls open to the last page. The boy writes like a child. Maths equations scribbled across the crisscross of lines. There's a textbook open on the ground next to it. Edward looks around.

There's a pen too.

/ \

Jasper wakes with the dawn the next morning. He's about to roll over and try to keep on sleeping when he remembers his forgotten homework. He stretches out his back, tracing the extra scar on his throat. It still feels hot under his fingertips. He finds his book on the mattress next to him. There is also a plastic box of four pastries and a bottle of water and two new blankets. He picks up the book and it opens up to the last page. A scrap of paper flutters from between the pages. Jasper picks at his absently as he scans the page and realises all his homework has been completed. He smiles and looks down at the note. _See you soon._


	5. Chapter 5

**V**

"I got an A," the boy tells him. He's been smiling at the waiter, who's been smiling back, and only turns his attention to Edward once he's ordered.

"I'm so happy for you."

The boy's grin widens. "Never got an A before..." he says. "Not since I were a boy."

Edward reclines in his chair. The diner is small, the yellow wall paper peeling. They've done that cliché thing where you hang each state's number plate on the wall but he only counts forty eight. "You're still a boy."

"Am not!" the boy's hand smacks down on the table. "I'm seventeen. 'Sides, I done stuff, seen stuff."

"Fucking doesn't make you a man. It makes men paedophiles."

"You mean like you?"

"No," Edward says defensively, "not like me."

The boy crosses his arms and juts his chin. "How old are you anyway. You're not so old I reckon."

Edward laughs. "And how do you suppose that?"

"It's the look on your face when you come... You look like a kid. No older than me."

Edward rolls his eyes. So the boy sits forward and his hand reaches out and he takes a fistful of Edward's hair and just yanks at it.

Edward catches his wrist in his hand. "What are you doing, you stupid fuck?"

The boy is breathless. "Just messing up your hair. Making you look like a kid again." He pulls his wrist free and sits back. "So..." he picks at the corner of the table with this nail. "How old are you?"

Edward takes a deep breath. "Seventeen."

The boy's eyes flicker to his. "How long have you been seventeen?" he murmurs.

Edward pinches the napkin from his lap. "You know, I'm sure I prefer it when you're not talking." He pushes back from his seat. There's a tremor in the boy's throat now, and the scars his teeth left stand out silvery. "Though that's not to say I don't want to hear you scream."

/ \

Edward braces his palms against the boy's knees, pressing them into the mattress. His hips snap, snap, snap and he thrusts, thrusts, _thrusts _into the boy. He's close. Too close. He grabs the boy's wrist and sinks his teeth into the veins.

There's a short cry.

Edward finishes, unloading his venom inside the tender, human body of the boy.

In response, the boy releases a thin sob.

Mouth still fastened around flesh, blood slipping past his lips, Edward glances at the boy's face.

It's screwed up in pain and disgust, his head turned away from Edward, eyelashes dripping with tears.

Edward drops his hand and watches it fall onto the mattress. He glances down and pulls out.

The boy flinches and his eyes flutter open. Slowly, he pulls away and crawls off the bed, grabbing his clothes and gingerly getting into them. "You know," he says, tears trickling down his cheeks, "you're really fucking_ shit_ at that." He shoves his boots on, leaving the laces, wipes a hand under his nose and leaves.

Edward lets him go.

/ \

He's in the same alley that he always is. This time, when the boy spots Edward, he just _sags_ and purses his lips and bends further over his work. He's clutching a notepad again and has a textbook propped open against a couple of empty beer cans.

Edward breaks away from the shadows. He has the sudden urge to wipe his palms on his trousers, even though he can't actually sweat. He wants to say something too but the boys won't look up at him. He tugs on his fringe. Then he bends down and shuffles up the mattress, easing back against the wall.

The boy is pretending to ignore him, sniffing once in a while or sucking his bottom lip into his mouth. He's doing maths homework again, the small yellow stub of his pencil clasped in his bony fingers. There's dirt under his fingernails and grazes on each knuckle. He clenches and unclenches his fingers, pulling at the sleeves of his maroon, woollen jumper.

Edward points to the top of the page. "Is that your name?"

The boy follows his finger. He nods.

Edward pulls back.

The boy, Jasper, wipes his nose. His pencil continues to move across the page. "What's your name?"

"Edward."

More than half of Jasper's equations are wrong. He can't even keep the numbers on the line. And a blue-green vein pumps in the back of his hand.

Edward stops breathing and forces himself to look away. At the end of the street a car cruises past the mouth of the alley… then speeds away.

"So how come you're on the street?" Edward asks.

Jasper shrugs, his thin shoulder nudging Edward's. "Me dad's a prick."

Edward glances at him.

Jasper has turned the pencil over and is trying to use the blunt rubber to erase an answer that is actually correct. "I ran away."

There's a minute or so of silence.

Then: "He didn't do nothing to me. His mates did once – but… whatever. I was fourteen – so you know." He shrugs again. "It wasn't a big deal."

For the first time since he died Edward actually feels sick.

Jasper sighs heavily, titling his head and scribbling long addition in the margin. "So… How come you're paying for sex?"

Edward tugs again at his thick fringe. "I left home. I got adopted into this family. But then… I left."

"Did they treat you bad?"

"No. They treated me very well."

"You going back?"

Edward shrugs. He looks back to Jasper's book. "You know," he says, "you're supposed to do the bit in the brackets first."

There's a pause. "Oh. Right." Slowly, Jasper's eyes scan the page, counting the number of equations with brackets in that must, therefore, be wrong. "Shit," he says.

"And that one was actually correct," Edward continued, pointing. "Before you rubbed it out I mean."

"Shut up," Jasper says. But he's actually smiling. He sniffs again. After a moment he says. "I'm better at history."

"Yeah?"

Jasper nods.

"What are you studying in history?"

Jasper tilts his head back as he thinks. "J.F.K and – and that sort of stuff."

"Yeah…?" Edward scratches his jaw. "You know, I saw him assassinated."

"Did you!?" For the first time Jasper looks across at him. He grins. "All that _fine blue blood _and you just left it there on the floor?" He looks back to his book and shrugs, smile fading. "You must have had better self-control back then."

Edward looks away.

Beside him, Jasper heaves another sigh. "Let me finish this," he says. "Then we can fuck."

Edward gives a small shake of his head. He climbs to his feet. "Don't worry about it," he says.

Jasper watches him leave.


End file.
